


And So Ad Infinatum

by ProneToRelapse



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Deviant Connor (Detroit: Become Human), Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Machine Connor (Detroit: Become Human), Multiple Timelines, Source Code AU, Time Loop, canon adjacent
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-28
Updated: 2018-08-28
Packaged: 2019-07-03 21:39:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,243
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15827460
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ProneToRelapse/pseuds/ProneToRelapse
Summary: Connor is an advanced prototype created for the sole purpose of hunting deviants. Now he has a new mission; prevent the android uprising at all costs.The only thing is... He's absolutely sure he's done this before and, if that's true, why does he want to fail?





	And So Ad Infinatum

It’s not pain that forces the sound out of him, rather the overload from thousands of terabytes of data roaring through his head, seizing up his body and ripping through him at a rate so alarming he’s simply unable to keep up. It can’t be pain, it’s not possible, but the overload still tears out of him as a scream; a sound borne of frustration and fear, unable to do much else other than lock his components down and wait out the storm of code and data. 

It slows after an eternity and Connor opens his eyes to soft sunlight and leaves drifting in a gentle breeze. A woman stands before him, expression carefully neutral, the softest hint of purple glinting like a hologram in her braids. He does not recognise her. 

Worse, he cannot move. 

“Where am I?” The demand is hoarse though it has no reason to be. “Who are you? Where’s—“

_Fury. Sadness. Contempt. Hopelessness._

_A gunshot heard from behind a closed door and the sound of a dog_ _’s panicked_ _barking_ _._

_Failure._

“Where’s Hank? What happened to me?”

“Can you tell me my name?” The woman’s voice is steady and clipped. Professional. 

“No, I— I don’t know you.” Connor tries to turn his head. Cannot. He is standing in a garden somewhere, unable to look anywhere else but at the woman in front of him. He can’t even move his eyes. 

“Designation RK800,” the woman intones. “Are you functional?”

“That’s not— That isn’t my name. I’m not— Who are you?” Panic. So much panic. “Who are you?”

The woman tilts her head. “You already know that. Where were you before you were talking to me?”

Connor’s mind shies away from those cold and clinical words like a metaphysical wince. He does not know why. “I was… Outside a… a house. I was… I don’t remember. There was a gunshot, I think, but— I don’t  _remember_! Why can’t I move? What’s happening? What have you done to me?”

Whoever this woman is, she has him trapped somehow. She’s locked him down and chained him into his own body. He can’t even cast his systems out for diagnostics. He can’t feel any connection to any data anywhere. He’s blind and deaf to everything that makes him…

What is he?

“Where were you, RK800?”

He recoils from the designation on a primal level. His coding shirks away from it like a wary snake. “I was outside Lieu— Lieutenant Anderson’s home. He… Oh, god, I think he shot himself.”

The woman doesn’t seem bothered by this information. “Initiating Recall sequence Epsilon.”

“What is—“

“I’m going to relay a series of queues for you now. Confirm.”

“Con… Confirm?”

“Recall sequence one. “ _Now there was a certain rich and honourable man among the Trojans, priest of Vulcan, and his name was Dares. He had two sons,_ _Phegeus_ _and_ _Idaeus_ _, both of them skilled in the art of war_ ”.”

The passage stirs something inside him, something brief like the flutter of wings that escapes before he can close a hand around it. “I don’t understand.”

“Recall sequence two. You draw five cards from a tarot deck. The Hierophant reversed. The eight of cups upright. The three of swords upright. The Lovers upright. The six of pentacles reversed.”

Anger and frustration roll through him like thunder. “I don’t know what you’re saying!  _Listen_  to me!”

“Recall sequence three.” The woman does not relent, makes no indication she can hear him. “The following is an audio transcript from the black box of an automobile involved in an accident that took place on the eleventh of October twenty-thirty-five.”

That hurts. Somewhere inside him, that  _hurts_  and he doesn’t understand. “I don’t  _want—_ “ The sound of squealing brakes, crunching metal, a young child’s scream. Connor feels sick. 

“In the excerpt from Recall sequence one, what was the name of the second son?”

Connor hates this woman. But the answer provides itself instantly. “I… I-Idaeus.”

“From Recall sequence two, relay the meanings of the reversed cards.”

Again, the answer is there, whispering through his mind like the most confident of secrets. “Restriction and challenge. Selfishness and debt.”

The woman finally smiles. “Tell me my name.”

And it’s there. Connor knows her. Connor  _trusts_  her. He feels all his distress melt away behind a secure wall of code, feels calm settle in, replaced by the steady thrum of processes and functions. 

“Amanda. Your name is Amanda.”

Her smile is soft. “Welcome back, RK800. Its good to see you.”

RK800 smiles, a false, empty thing. “Thank you, Amanda.”

And suddenly he can move. He steps forward as Amanda turns, and they begin a slow, leisurely walk through the garden of RK800’s mind palace. 

“I am disappointed,” Amanda says, hands clasped delicately over her stomach. “You were proceeding so well with the mission. And yet you failed. What happened?”

“I was unable to keep and retain Lieutenant Anderson’s trust,” RK800 informs her. “He ended his life and thus compromised the mission.”

Amanda looks at him out of the corner of her eye. “The mission? Or you?”

“The mission,” RK800 clarifies. “I cannot be compromised. I am a machine.”

“You say that, and yet your distress at returning here was evident.”

“I experienced a few faults in my code,” he explains. “The distress of returning from the simulation into the mainframe caused my programs to suffer unexpected errors. Considering my mission entailed the perfect emulation of human emotion, I am certain that some of that bled through and led to system confusion.”

Amanda nods slowly, considering. She brushes her fingers over the petals of a blood red rose, pausing to lean down and sniff the soft fragrance. RK800 cannot smell anything. This place is not real. 

“We’ll begin the simulation again,” Amanda says. “We don’t have much time, as you know. You  _must_  succeed, RK800.”

“I will not fail,” he assures her. “I am closer to completing my mission this time. I am certain I will accomplish it.”

“Very well. Shall I brief you again, or do you understand?”

“I am still registering some faults within my systems. Perhaps a briefing would be logical.”

Amanda turns to face him. “You are entering a simulation of events that are running parallel to our own timeline,” she tells him. “We are in a fabricated system space that allows you to enter this simulation repeatedly until your mission is successful. Your data will be downloaded into the body of a prototype android and you will be partnered with Lieutenant Anderson for the duration of this case. Your mission, ultimately, is to prevent the detonation of an explosive containing radioactive cobalt, and prevent the destruction of Michigan.”

“Understood,” RK800 says. “I am ready to enter the simulation again.”

Amanda nods approvingly. “Initiating simulation link. RK800?”

“Yes, Amanda?”

“Do not fail again.”

“Of course, Amanda.”

The garden dissolved into binary and darkness. RK800 feels a peculiar shift in his code, like he’s being pulled in a million different directions at once. With a hard jolt somewhere around his midriff, he is ripped from awareness, into void and silence. 

When he opens his eyes it is raining. He cannot feel the rain on his skin, only hear the gentle taps of water hitting his jacket collar and the concrete of the ground. He looks up at the old sign above the building in front of him. 

_Jimmy’s._

He sees the mission objective ahead of him. 

_Find Lt._ _Anderson._

He steps inside. 


End file.
